We went to Myrtle Beach and took our first road trip in the Tesla, which included charging somewhere other than at home for the first time, too. That's what we were most nervous about, just because we'd never done it. Planning the trip is no work at all, thanks to the Tesla navigation. Once you put in your destination, it decides where to charge. If you don't like the option it picks, you can change it. When we purchased our Model Y in September, it came with a free month of self-driving, but we didn't continue paying for it after the trial period. It is available to add for a monthly rate of $99, so we opted in for our trip. I was skeptical because it made me anxious to ride with it before, but it was honestly great to have and worth the added expense for that long of a drive! You can't like take a nap and let it drive, you still have to pay attention (it will beep at you if you're not), but you can relax and enjoy the landscaping, check your phone for a sec, or easily turn something on the screen in the backseat for the children without having to worry too much. There are three modes--Chill (for when you see a cop 😂), which goes the speed limit or under, Standard (for after you pass the cop), which goes 5-6 mph over the speed limit, and Hurry, which I wasn't brave enough to test 😂. It does a great job on the interstate and switches lanes appropriately, but that can be very unnerving when you're not paying attention. It would start getting over and I would have a tiny panic attack because I hadn't properly assessed the situation. It's like when you've just gone through an intersection and you're like, "Was that light even green?" 😳.
It can mostly be trusted on the interstate, but it's not perfect in roadwork, and it does not dodge roadkill 🫣. We hit a baby deer carcass so hard that if it wasn't already dead, we definitely finished the job. We kept an eye on the tire pressure for a bit afterwards to make sure we didn't damage a tire.
Driving around an unfamiliar area can be anxiety inducing, so self-driving was super helpful for that, too. However, you have to pay closer attention when things get congested. It doesn't do well recognizing left turn lanes. It gets kind of indecisive and jittery and that scared me a little.
It also doesn't do well in parking garages, like it doesn't realize there are multiple floors. However, once you get to where you're going, the Auto Park feature is pretty awesome. It always backs into spaces, which I wouldn't do, but that makes it easier when leaving.
While we have the self-driving enabled, we are able to summon the car in a parking lot, which we did when we were at a playground and it started raining. It's super weird to have your car drive itself up to you with no driver 😂.
The best part about taking an electric vehicle on a road trip is the savings in fuel costs. We drove 1180 miles roundtrip, stopping to charge 3 times on the way down and 2 on the way back. We could've skipped that third charge, but we wanted to make sure we had some battery left when we got there so we didn't have to worry about doing it right away. We didn't need to worry though, our resort had 2 chargers and we were able to use them two times for free! The resort was already awesome, but that makes it even better.
Our roundtrip charging cost was $87.71. The equivalent trip in my Jeep, which gets around 30 mpg on the highway, would've cost $275, pricing gas at $3.50/gallon. That price is conservative for some of the areas we stopped in, too. So, we saved $187 in gas, along with hundreds of emissions. Charging at home is even cheaper per mile because it charges at a rate of $0.16 per kilowatt hour, while the superchargers had a varying rate of $0.42-$0.49 per kilowatt hour.
Another concern we had about charging was the time it would take to do it. All of the chargers we used were located at gas stations, so when we stopped, we would get out to stretch our legs, use the restroom, and get food, and the car was always ready before we were. If you stop at a busy place, there's a chance you could have to wait to charge, but we didn't encounter that problem, thankfully.
My biggest complaint about the driving portion of our trip was about the car itself. It has the unfortunate feature of a glass, therefore see through, roof. It seems like a cool idea until you're trying to sleep and every passing streetlight is a spotlight in your eyes 🙄. I need an eye mask for next time.
Both ways took us about 11 hours each with stops, and while that always sucks, the trip was less taxing with our Tesla.
Beach Blog coming next!
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